ABSTRACT
The effects of resource depletion and economic growth on the quality of life depends primarily on the philosophical situation of the members of the society involved. For people corrupted by money, economic growth is a disaster-the quality of their lives deteriorates as growth proceeds. The quality of life, then, depends on our assessment of experience in relation to the values that are a part of the philosophy people hold. Although this view, as suggested by the essay of Ortega y Gasset, does not necessarily envision an inevitable decline in the quality of life as coming mainly through successive blows to the quality of the environment, this possibility could easily be accommodated to the argument. Perhaps the view that the very nature of mass man will lead him to misuse increasing affluence, thus lowering the quality of life either with or without an accompanying decline in the quality of the environment, is wrong.
